Follow these easy steps to organize a profitable bottle drive!

Many community groups have had great success fundraising through bottle drives. Organizing yourselves makes the process efficient, profitable and fun!

Step 1 - Put your team together

• Form a committee (it might be a committee already in place for fundraising or other community activities)
• Choose a team leader for the drive
• Assign responsibilities for the following steps

Step 2 - Fill out our Bottle Drive Form

You will receive:

• Our Acceptable Recycle List and current Refund Prices
• Provide you with plastic bags for packing cans, plastic bottles, jugs and drink boxes
• Inform you of the required quantities and container types per bag for faster redemption

Step 3 - Establish the best method of collection for your group

• The choice is between collecting door-to-door and having people bring containers to a central site
• Collecting door-to-door requires more volunteers and more vehicles, but it's more convenient for residents
• Central site collection works if you have a location (school, church, parking lot, sports area) where people can bring their empty beverage containers. This system requires fewer volunteers and vehicles, but calls for more publicity to get residents to bring empty containers to you.

Step 4 - Map your collection area

Consult a map of your community to decide how large an area you will be able to cover efficiently.

• Concentrate on residential areas
• If there are apartments, check with the apartment managers to see if your team can get in to leave publicity notes and/or pick up empty ready-to-drink beverage containers. Some apartment managers may agree to save these containers for you.

Step 5 - Promote your Event

• Once you have decided on the date, the area and the collection method, you can coordinate the publicity. This is essential to a successful drive.
• Have a reason for the drive such as buying sports equipment, financing a trip, helping in a building program or supporting a charity. Some goal the community can get behind.
• Print simple flyers with:
  • Name of your organization
  • Reason for drive
  • Date of drive
  • Time for collection
  • Collection method (door-to-door or central location)
  • List of what you are collecting
  • Telephone number people can call for information

• Deliver a flyer to every home in your collection area
• Make sure every member of your group has flyers to take home
• Write a short announcement of the event, including the information on the flyer, and send it to the community events page of your local newspaper and to the public service announcement departments at local radio and television stations

The most effective method of distributing information is delivery of door-to-door notices. If you have the volunteers to do this; you should deliver the notices twice, one month before the drive and the week of the drive.

Step 6 - Set up your collection teams & Organise equipment

• If you have chosen a door-to-door collection, divide the area into sections and assign collectors, drivers and vehicles to these areas
• If you have chosen a central site, have a team onsite to greet people bringing in donations, and facilities for handling empty containers until you're ready to deliver them to our Bottle Depot
• Make sure sorters follow the guide according to size and type. Soft drink and juice containers must be kept separate from containers for beer and other alcohol beverages.

We will drop off supplies to package all products.